Product teams have been repeating the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) mantra for a decade now, without re-evaluating whether it’s the right way to maximize learning while pleasing the customer. Well, it’s not the best system. It’s selfish and it hurts customers. MORE

The single most important SaaS metric is retention , because cancellations indicate lack of product/market fit, no matter the cause (price, features, severity of need, duration of need). If it cannot be fixed, it means the business is a failure even if other metrics are stellar. MORE

This is a guest post by Nathan Barry, in response to two other posts that previously appeared on this blog. Nathan is the author of Designing Web Applications , The App Design Handbook , and Authority: A Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing. MORE

Not sure? Yes you are. You’re just scared. Which is understandable. But you’re sure. Is employee #2 not working out, or does she maybe just need more time? If you have to ask, you know the answer, you just don’t want to do the difficult thing. MORE

Watch a bunch of interviews of founders of successful companies, and here’s what you don’t hear: We tried eight different marketing channels — AdWords, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, social media, events, retargeting, SEO, guest-posting, PR, and so on. MORE

People said there’s no money in hosting. WordPress is just a toy. After the success of Smart Bear, I should be setting my sights on something big, not this. I’m sure people said similar things to Heather when she joined as our CEO. MORE

The answer is always yes. But it’s the wrong question. I started Smart Bear in a recession (2002) and it went great. I’ve been explaining for eight years why recessions are a great time to start a company. MORE

Forget work/life integration for a minute. How much time do you have, regardless of partitioning? From your 24-hour daily allotment, the 1950s-style break-down is 8 hours for work, 8 for home and commute, and 8 for sleep and ablutions. MORE

Does it feel like everyone is working very hard, all the time, and yet not accomplishing as much as everyone would like? Maybe this is why. Suppose a web server is running at 50% of its full capacity. MORE

As the founder of WP Engine, I receive weekly emails from startups proposing a “win-win” deal. So far, approximately zero have resulted in an successful deal. Here’s the problem , and how you can change your approach to business development so that it can succeed. MORE

Early in a company’s life, you don’t know anything. Often your best estimate of any metric or market behavior or business model component is at best accurate within a power of ten, for example “expected conversion rate between 0.5% MORE

Large companies don’t acquire small companies for their financials. Revenue multiples, profit multiples, premium over the previous financing — these are metrics used by sellers to help determine a minimum acceptable price. MORE

Seems like every third startup nowadays is using the “Freemium” business model: The lowest service tier is free, and the business is designed to get those users hooked and then upgrade to a paid plan. MORE

What if Dropbox is just an awesome file-sharing and backup service but not a universal key/value storage API? What if OpenTable is the perfect reservation system but nothing else? What if Yelp has ratings but can’t solve the logistics of food delivery? MORE

The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 10 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time. — Tom Cargill, Bell Labs. MORE

“There’s a 30% chance of rain today.” ” And then it didn’t rain. So, was the forecast accurate? Or what if it did rain. Does that mean the forecast was inaccurate? How do you hold forecasters accountable, when the forecast is only a probability? MORE

Everyone said this would be the most embarrassing moment in the band’s eight-year career. Depeche Mode had decided to play the Pasadena Rose Bowl — capacity 60,000 — for the 101st show of their 1988 tour. MORE

One thing we’ve learned from the diet crazes since the 1980s is that every single thing has been alternately touted as healthy or poison. No-fat, carb-heavy. Scratch that, no-carb, fat doesn’t matter. Scratch that, it’s only about low-cal. Scratch that, whole-30 and don’t track calories. MORE

This is the perennial question for startups who have started to taste success, and are ready to invest in themselves in the form of new helping hands. The question is: How do you decide what role is most important to hire for? MORE

Here’s some of my super-secret winning strategies from fifteen years of building startups. Stay in stealth mode until the last minute. The last thing any startup needs is people finding out about it. You can get attention later — that’s not difficult. MORE

Marketo filed for IPO with impressive 80% year-over-year growth in 2012, with almost $60m in revenue. Except, they lost $35m. It’s not impressive when you spend $1.60 for every $1.00 of revenue, force-feeding sales pipelines with an unprofitable product. MORE

We all face complex business decisions for which there is no one, correct answer, and yet a strong and occasionally permanent decision is required of us. Sometimes the puzzle is created by fundamental uncertainty inherent in the decision. MORE

“Maximizing” means expending time and effort to ensure you’ve solved something as best as possible. It requires exploration and analysis to ensure “the best” option hasn’t been overlooked, and that we have confidence in our evaluation of all options. MORE

Early in my career, I was indoctrinated with a Cardinal Rule of User Interface: A user interface should minimize surprise. Have you always hated tabs inside dialog boxes? Understandable, but users know how they work, so you have to use them. MORE

Top workplace complaints: 1) The way things are 2) Change. — Andrew Annett (@akannett) June 1, 2015. This plays out in many important ways: Customers demand an improved UX , but they don’t want to learn a new UX. Team members want consistency but don’t want policies. Developers want to be more efficient but don’t want to change how they work. Strategy is ineffective if it’s constantly in flux, but a strategy that remains unchanged in the presence of new information is incorrect. MORE

(Guest post by Gordon Daugherty. If you like this, go see his Shockwave Innovations blog ) Anyone that has taken an accounting class or learned basic business financials knows the interaction between key elements of a P&L (revenue, cost, expense) and a balance sheet (assets, liabilities, equity). MORE

“You must be so proud of what you created” — the reflexive conclusion delivered by visitors to our building at WP Engine, struck by a beautiful place teeming with energy and activity, coming upon the little office of the founder. “What we created,” I always respond. MORE

My personal experience, confirmed by numerous studies, is: It’s faster to process email in batches rather than checking in 30 times/day. Humans cannot multi-task, they just complete both tasks slower, and with lower quality. MORE

We all face complex business decisions for which there is no one, correct answer, and yet a strong and occasionally permanent decision is required of us. Sometimes the puzzle is created by fundamental uncertainty inherent in the decision.

Product teams have been repeating the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) mantra for a decade now, without re-evaluating whether it’s the right way to maximize learning while pleasing the customer. Well, it’s not the best system. It’s selfish and it hurts customers.

The single most important SaaS metric is retention , because cancellations indicate lack of product/market fit, no matter the cause (price, features, severity of need, duration of need). If it cannot be fixed, it means the business is a failure even if other metrics are stellar.

Forget work/life integration for a minute. How much time do you have, regardless of partitioning? From your 24-hour daily allotment, the 1950s-style break-down is 8 hours for work, 8 for home and commute, and 8 for sleep and ablutions.

Early in my career, I was indoctrinated with a Cardinal Rule of User Interface: A user interface should minimize surprise. Have you always hated tabs inside dialog boxes? Understandable, but users know how they work, so you have to use them.

Watch a bunch of interviews of founders of successful companies, and here’s what you don’t hear: We tried eight different marketing channels — AdWords, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, social media, events, retargeting, SEO, guest-posting, PR, and so on.

People said there’s no money in hosting. WordPress is just a toy. After the success of Smart Bear, I should be setting my sights on something big, not this. I’m sure people said similar things to Heather when she joined as our CEO.

The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 10 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time. — Tom Cargill, Bell Labs.

Forget work/life integration for a minute. How much time do you have, regardless of partitioning? From your 24-hour daily allotment, the 1950s-style break-down is 8 hours for work, 8 for home and commute, and 8 for sleep and ablutions.

One thing we’ve learned from the diet crazes since the 1980s is that every single thing has been alternately touted as healthy or poison. No-fat, carb-heavy. Scratch that, no-carb, fat doesn’t matter. Scratch that, it’s only about low-cal. Scratch that, whole-30 and don’t track calories.

Not sure? Yes you are. You’re just scared. Which is understandable. But you’re sure. Is employee #2 not working out, or does she maybe just need more time? If you have to ask, you know the answer, you just don’t want to do the difficult thing.

This is the perennial question for startups who have started to taste success, and are ready to invest in themselves in the form of new helping hands. The question is: How do you decide what role is most important to hire for?

Large companies don’t acquire small companies for their financials. Revenue multiples, profit multiples, premium over the previous financing — these are metrics used by sellers to help determine a minimum acceptable price.

As the founder of WP Engine, I receive weekly emails from startups proposing a “win-win” deal. So far, approximately zero have resulted in an successful deal. Here’s the problem , and how you can change your approach to business development so that it can succeed.

Marketo filed for IPO with impressive 80% year-over-year growth in 2012, with almost $60m in revenue. Except, they lost $35m. It’s not impressive when you spend $1.60 for every $1.00 of revenue, force-feeding sales pipelines with an unprofitable product.

Early in a company’s life, you don’t know anything. Often your best estimate of any metric or market behavior or business model component is at best accurate within a power of ten, for example “expected conversion rate between 0.5%

“You must be so proud of what you created” — the reflexive conclusion delivered by visitors to our building at WP Engine, struck by a beautiful place teeming with energy and activity, coming upon the little office of the founder. “What we created,” I always respond.

Top workplace complaints: 1) The way things are 2) Change. — Andrew Annett (@akannett) June 1, 2015. This plays out in many important ways: Customers demand an improved UX , but they don’t want to learn a new UX. Team members want consistency but don’t want policies. Developers want to be more efficient but don’t want to change how they work. Strategy is ineffective if it’s constantly in flux, but a strategy that remains unchanged in the presence of new information is incorrect.

This is a guest post by Nathan Barry, in response to two other posts that previously appeared on this blog. Nathan is the author of Designing Web Applications , The App Design Handbook , and Authority: A Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing.

“There’s a 30% chance of rain today.” ” And then it didn’t rain. So, was the forecast accurate? Or what if it did rain. Does that mean the forecast was inaccurate? How do you hold forecasters accountable, when the forecast is only a probability?

Everyone said this would be the most embarrassing moment in the band’s eight-year career. Depeche Mode had decided to play the Pasadena Rose Bowl — capacity 60,000 — for the 101st show of their 1988 tour.

(Guest post by Gordon Daugherty. If you like this, go see his Shockwave Innovations blog ) Anyone that has taken an accounting class or learned basic business financials knows the interaction between key elements of a P&L (revenue, cost, expense) and a balance sheet (assets, liabilities, equity).

My personal experience, confirmed by numerous studies, is: It’s faster to process email in batches rather than checking in 30 times/day. Humans cannot multi-task, they just complete both tasks slower, and with lower quality.

The answer is always yes. But it’s the wrong question. I started Smart Bear in a recession (2002) and it went great. I’ve been explaining for eight years why recessions are a great time to start a company.

What if Dropbox is just an awesome file-sharing and backup service but not a universal key/value storage API? What if OpenTable is the perfect reservation system but nothing else? What if Yelp has ratings but can’t solve the logistics of food delivery?

“Maximizing” means expending time and effort to ensure you’ve solved something as best as possible. It requires exploration and analysis to ensure “the best” option hasn’t been overlooked, and that we have confidence in our evaluation of all options.

Here’s some of my super-secret winning strategies from fifteen years of building startups. Stay in stealth mode until the last minute. The last thing any startup needs is people finding out about it. You can get attention later — that’s not difficult.